As I progress, I take grabs of the panels I've been drawing that day, to help keep people aware of what I'm doing. He flatters himself that anyone is remotely interested. Here are some.
Tuesday, 5 September 2023
Monday, 4 September 2023
Combined book sales at live events 2023
These results are for my books sold at live events (comic cons, classes, book festivals etc) taken by card payment through my iZettle, which itemises sales. Cash sales are fewer, and probably add a couple of sales to each column.
2023 TOTAL (up to and including Kettering)
Kettering Lit Fest (Sept 16)
St Ives Library (Sept 9)
NICE (Sept 2 & 3)
Saturday, 2 September 2023
Book sales September, starting with Bedford
September's live book sales got off to a very good start with my debut appearance at the NICE comic con in Bedford. On the first day I took a remarkable £545.
Part of this was, like with July's LFCC, selling artwork. Two pages of Dr Strange went for a combined and bartered price of £260, plus a Gary Frank pencilled page went for £300, but the buyer has so far only paid a £50 deposit (I know, unnecessarily complicated).
This still means that, art sales aside, I sold £235 worth of books. (A one-day total that compares very favourably to July's total live book sales of £460, the biggest single day of which was £176 at LFCC, and June's total of £304, the biggest single day of which was £145 at Clevedon.)
Sunday continued the trend, with me taking £403, of which £118 was book sales (plus a page of Dr Who Comic Assassins for £75, a page of Red Dwarf Androids for £60, and a page of Dr Strange for £150)
The success of these book sales was down to me grabbing passers by, especially families with kids, and caricaturing them, thus attracting them to my table to look at my books which then, of course, sell themselves. Credit has to go to Jeff Chahal, the organiser of NICE (which stands for Northampton International Comics Expo, by the way), for attracting the right sort of punters, including browsing families and kids for me as well as art buyers who'd actually put their hands in their pockets.
Sept 9th St Ives - Sales after my two classes = £101.93
Sept 16th Kettering - Sales after two classes = £119.91
Friday, 1 September 2023
Drawing Richard The Third - worksheet
Today I have mostly been drawing Richard The Third chatting up Lady Anne Neville over the corpse of her late husband. And so began the first day of finally getting round to drawing the new graphic novel in earnest, after a month of schools and other stuff keeping me way too busy to get on with it. Work in progress looks like this:
Book sales August - classes win, everything else meh
Here's me looking good on the screen outside Strule Arts in Omagh, during my 6 day run at arts centres in Northern Ireland this August. This, and my other summer art classes, were by far the best way I found of selling comics this month, probably even this year. There were parents in the back of the classes watching. Something which, previously, I've found a bit of a distraction. Now, armed with books and a point of sale display, they are punters.
Notwithstanding the fact that I could only take a limited number of books to NI and had sold out by halfway through the week, lets have a look at what a part they played in August's book sales. (Through iZettle, cash sales were occasional but few).
Saturday, 26 August 2023
Oh, and I bought a car - August notes
Something I didn't post about on Facebook was that we bought a car last week. For a couple of months now, I've been worried about the state of the car (which, my diary recalls, I bought back in 2017). It's been needing topped up with oil on a far too regular basis, and the brakes were shuddering whenever I slowed down. Oh, and it had over 150,000 miles on the clock. Given that, in 2020, we managed a year without driving anywhere at all, that's a pretty impressive 25,000 miles a year. As I took it in for its service on Wednesday I feared the worst.
Ironically, the car's last journey of any note was the previous day's trip to Coleford taking me to a Driver Awareness Course, which I was doing following a "56 in a 50" speeding fine. One ticket in 150,000 miles isn't bad, wouldn't you say? Sadly I just acquired a second one when I was going to a school in Beverley a week earlier.
The garage (Stellantis at Cribbs Causeway, formerly Robins & Day) took one look under the bonnet, charged me a few hundred quid for it, and explained how much work needed doing. It was, as has happened so many times before, new car time. So I looked round the used car lot, made a few phone calls to Hev, then began the process of buying the new car. Unfortunately, because of taking out the mortgage on the new house last year, I can't pay for the car on financing, so had to find the £11,063 (after measly trade-in on the old wreck) from savings and credit cards. Better keep myself busy to get it paid off, then, hadn't I? It's a lovely 2019 car, with a sunroof and a few more mod cons than the last, inc reversing camera, and the sensation of being able to brake without shuddering is still taking some getting used to.
*******
July 31: Sad to lose Paul (Pee Wee Herman) Reubens.
Friday, 25 August 2023
Seibmoz and other nonsense - more comics by kids
It's been the busiest summer for Comic Art Masterclasses that I think I've ever done. Missing the Edinburgh Fringe as we are (and we are missing it!) means that I've been able to so summer school and holiday classes that I wouldn't be able to otherwise. So August has seen 13 days of classes, two groups a day, these being the last four days of the month: two days at libraries in Nottingham, and two days at a school in Derby.
Clifton library in the morning and Dales library in the afternoon were the start of my two day sojourn to Nottingham. And, as well as delivering my usual sterling sellout classes, I took advantage of the parents at the back of the room by selling them books afterwards. £84 quids worth of books sold in a day, a nice bonus.
Day 2 in Nottingham saw me doing two classes at Clifton library, with two sellout classes, two more fun comics (which I've enjoyed having time to colour in my hotel room in the evening). And, bonus upon bonus, I flogged £126 worth of books after the classes. I'm going to miss classes with parents at the back of room.
Case in point, my two days at St Benedicts school in Derby were a return to working with classrooms full of kids, no parents around so no books to be flogged. The kids were great, a bunch of the incoming Year 7s getting a taste of the school in advance. And coming up with the some of the best comic titles.